Chronological Analysis of the Price of Tomato Fruit (Solanum lycopersicum L.) in Benin Main Markets from 2006 to 2015

The fluctuation of the price of tomatoes during the year represents, for the Beninese population a real problem, both in terms of food and socio-economic. In this context, this work analyses the evolution of the selling prices of tomatoes in 11 Benin markets from 2006 to 2015. The tomatoes price experienced a high and strong fluctuation in most markets. The multiplicative model made it possible to isolate the trend and the seasonality. The trend has been adjusted by a 3rd order centered moving average model. Seasonality indices showed that the price is higher than the monthly average in most markets during the months from March to June. These fluctuations depend on the production system and rainfall conditions. The understanding of the evolution of the price of tomatoes is therefore necessary for the formulation of the market stabilization policies of this product.